Mrs. Oliphant

“ Montressor was not only a capital fellow, he was, by his own showing, a man of genius; and what a thing to leap in a moment, on his first step in London, into the intimacy of such a man! Of course he was a Bohemian, but everybody knew that Bohemians were the most amusing class; that all artists belonged more or less to it; that it was sausages and porter one night with them, and the next truffles and champagne.
Notwithstanding the pleasurable sensations with which John set out on his walk, it was no small business to get home. ”

“ He got perhaps more applause than was good for him from Elly, who he honestly believed followed all his elucidations, and from Susie, who understood none of them, and did not pretend to know anything save that he was very clever, the cleverest of engineers, a conclusion which, with deprecations, John was not perhaps altogether unwilling to accept. In this way they spent a few hours of such happiness as comes but rarely in youthful life. It was better than the more emotional rapture of the young lover’s paradise, for it had so many finer elements in it to their own happy consciousness. ”

“ The air may be sober in the morning—it is like wine at night. The darkness has a mystery, a magic in it—the lights twinkling through it—the world made into something ideal, in which miracles are. John stood still for a moment at the door, realising that he was there, that he was unshackled—his own master—and then, drawn by the great voice that called and called him, he turned his face towards the distant blazing of the lights, and set out—to discover that new world. ”

“ Cattley unwillingly going away to his living, and Percy stepping into the post which had been kept thus warm for him, were fulfilling the ordinary law of nature. But John might just as well have done nothing in particular, have contented himself with holding his place and no more. He sat down at the table in the old bow-windowed room, where all his early education had been given him, with a still warmer thrill of self-approval. It is so seldom that one can feel one’s self to have done more than one’s duty. ”

“ He paused, and the flush of a sudden struggle came all over him, a rush of blood to his brain,{316} a conflict of thoughts which filled his head and his ears with a clamour as of armies meeting, and then he continued, with a vehemence which was not in his ordinary nature, a burst of generous youthful impulse unlike the ordinary wisdom and self-restraint of his sober youth, ‘I’ll be a friend to you instead of Joe!’
The convict—for he was a convict, however he might explain his offences away—gave John a smile which was like sunshine, and lit up all his face. But then he shook his head. ”

“ Offences against the person are evident crimes; to injure another man, to put him in danger of his life, to give him pain, that I can understand; or to rob him of what is perhaps his children’s bread. But to write his name instead of your own! I have had a great deal of time to think of it. I cannot see, after all, the criminality of that.’
‘It’s one of the worst of crimes,’ said John, ‘it strikes at the root of everything. Why, forgery——’
‘Yes, give a dog an ill name,’ said the other dispassionate thinker, ‘call it forgery, and it becomes a bogey and frightens everybody. ”

“ It was not perhaps the right moment to laugh: but it is difficult to regulate that sense of the ridiculous, which is one comfort in all our troubles. Something in the sight of John’s solemn face, so troubled and serious in the clutch of this dilemma, overcame Elly in her nervous excitement and she burst into a wild peal of laughter—which rang over all the damp, sweet wilderness that had become the Garden of Eden of this primitive natural pair. ”

“ I cannot be unpacking and settling myself all my life.’
‘Don’t be afraid,’ said his mother. ‘I encourage idleness in no one. Here we are at your lodgings. You had better get down your boxes yourself, with the aid of the cabman. There is only a maid-of-all-work in the house.’
John stumbled out of the carriage in haste and bitterness of soul. The cab had stopped at the door of an old-fashioned red brick house, looking small but pleasant enough, with a very white doorstep, and a woman standing in the doorway who smiled and nodded her much-adorned cap at him by way of welcome. ”

“ Many a poor creature had found ease and succour and the tenderest help in it. But yet to John it was cold, sending a chill to his very heart; the great space, the stony stairs and passages, the universal pre-occupation were all so destructive to the idea of anything that could be called a home. People might live there no doubt, did live there when they were compelled by illness, or by duty for the help of those who were ill, but to dwell under that vast roof which covered so much suffering, how was that possible? ”

“ The process had been a hard one, and he had suffered much while it was going on: but it had been accomplished more than anyone would have thought possible who had known of John Sandford’s youthful life between the two old people who loved him in their old home. He was a man now, and as nearly living by the mind alone, and for the pursuits of the intelligence and reason without any softer intermixture, as any man of his age could be. ”

“ He thought sometimes of the serious kiss which had passed{118} between them in token of everlasting friendship, of brotherhood and sisterhood, a seal of youthful affection untinged by any of the agitations or uneasy appropriations of love. It had brought a little colour to Elly’s cheek, but none to that of John, who had asked for it so seriously. The thought brought a little stir now, a little pleasurable movement of his blood. A sister, but not like Susie; a friend, but holding a place apart which no other friend could come near. And, to tell the truth, John had not very many friends ”

“ They had not met during these years which tell for so much in a young man’s life, and probably even tell for more in the experience of a girl. How she had grown up, or whether she had grown up at all, was a question which John did not discuss with himself. He was very fond of Elly, no one had ever taken her place in his mind. He still thought of her under the pear-tree with her algebra, as if during all this time there had been no further development either of herself or her studies. ”

“ To think that John should ever have been moved to an almost sympathetic amusement by the looks of a man whom he had picked up in a state of intoxication in the street—to think that he should have been so much touched by his appearance as to pick the man up, to transport him to this familiar place, to exert himself so distinctly on behalf of an ex-convict, a criminal, a drunkard! ”

“ He, who was so much older than his age, felt now what a young, helpless, impotent being he was before all that force of opposition and good sense and fact. ‘I wish,’ he cried, looking at her with a certain fond impatience, ‘that you were only a girl as you used to be, with your hair waving upon your shoulders—I wish you had put off growing up for a few years, Elly! You are a woman now, and as good as a queen. ”

“ Sandford started, and looked at him with astonished eyes.
‘My work?’ she said, ‘do you think you could do my work?’
‘If it is only adding up figures, surely,’ said John.
This time she let her eyes dwell on him a little longer, with a momentary smile, but more of wonder at his audacity than pleasure.
‘That was well meant,’ she said; ‘it was well meant. Susie, I think you can be spared to-day. You might go out with him, and show him something. It is natural that he should want to see something: and I shall have more time this evening to tell him what I have settled. ”

“ It was almost night when they reached the great bustling crowded station—dusk at least, the lamps beginning to twinkle, the air growing cold which had been almost warm in spring brightness in the earlier part of the day. Mrs. Sandford had all her packages collected and placed on a cab, with little assistance from John, who was bewildered and confused by all the commotion and tumult, people running against him on all sides, and shrieking at each other. ”

“ It was the strangest novelty in his life. The old people, perhaps, would have been anxious too. They would have asked him all about it—they would not have liked him being so late. But how different their indulgent waiting for his explanation, from this sudden indictment, so full of implications which he did not understand. The Houses of Parliament, and the bustle of the Strand, and Montressor with his stories, might be new, but this was newer, still more strange to him. And yet she was so unhappy that John could not resent it. ”

“ She was twenty-two, very modest and quiet, sometimes looking older than her age, yet sometimes also looking infantine in the fulness of a life that knew no distractions, nothing but the hospital, the service of others. She was not strictly pretty. Her hair was brown, her eyes brown like most people’s, her complexion generally pale, with a little colour coming and going, nothing in her to be remarked at the first glance, no beauty—but to those who knew her a certain charm, tranquil and pure, the beauty of a spirit absolutely free from any pre-occupations of its own. ”

“ Then, more boldly, ‘But if you’re to be John Sandford, as grandfather said, you can’t be—the other. Is it right to have two names? It is just the one thing that cannot be done. It looks as if one were dishonest, untrue, to hide one’s name——’
‘I have no reason to do that,’ said John. ‘If you are sure grandfather intended it to be so? He never said anything to me. I always took it for granted without inquiring. I had forgotten the other. As for Mr. Montressor,’ said John, ‘I did it without thought. ”

“ Egerton turned to him who offered this succour with eagerness.
‘Percy understands,’ she said, ‘he has more interest in it than anyone except myself, and he knows the world and that such things can’t be. They can’t be. Ask anybody. Ask your own connections, Jack; ask—— Mr. Cattley.’ She made a little pause before she said this, and gave a glance at the curate seated there with downcast eyes. Her voice faltered a little, but not with trouble this time. It was a sort of half smile which fluttered across the current of her speech. ”

“ John, being young and shy, did not like these demonstrations; but they pleased the object of them, who stood aside a little, and said to his young companion, ‘They remember Montressor. Though the managers consider me passé, sir, me old admirers, those that have once flocked to see me in my favourite parts, have not forgotten me. The public makes up for the injustice of the officials; me kind friends—me good friends! This would be sweet to the heart of me faithful partner, Mr. May.’
‘Yes, perhaps she would like it,’ said John, hesitating. ”

“ John, it’s that we’re frightened for, mother and I; it brings everything that’s bad with it. It is destruction. Oh, it is nothing to-night, I know; it may be quite innocent to-night: but it’s never innocent, for it’s the bringing of all harm. ”

“ Temperance and purity give wings to the mind, as they give force to the body. He read in self-defence, to quench all youthful longings after gaiety and brightness, and when he had exhausted poetry and fiction, which naturally he felt to be the best indemnifications and solaces for his loneliness, he began to read for work and for ambition, and soon found in those books that dealt either directly or indirectly with his profession, an interest more ardent, more exciting, than even that of story. ”

“ A holiday is not always so very good a thing. When the mind is busy with a delicate piece of engineering, or with specifications or even estimates, it has not time to get into mischief. But fancy when suddenly left blank of all those occupations, deprived of all preservatives, and left to face the most supreme of youthful impulses without any defence at all, is in a bad way. John did what of course is the very worst thing{229} he could possibly have done. He wandered about all day, taking long walks, and turning over and over in his bewildered brain the same subject—and that subject was Elly. ”

“ May— John May!’ cried the voice which became breathless with the hurrying of its owner towards him. John looked round, and saw close to him a figure which he had not seen for a long time; a tall man, taller than ever in consequence of his increased leanness and meagreness, with a tall hat, more shiny than ever by reason of extreme wear and shabbiness, and the glaze of poverty. John had seen very little of Montressor since the time when he had first made his acquaintance, on his arrival in town. ”